February 21-24, 2017

We began a new system to encourage students to speak French in class. The students already speak to me in French and speak French on the carpet, but now I want them to start speaking French to each other! We brainstormed a list of prizes that the class could receive during heure de jeux on Fridays. Then we voted on the prizes to put them in order of desirability. These prizes are now posted on our white board, and whenever a student speaks in French I add their name on a little sticky note to the board. The names are forming a "ladder" to climb up to the prizes, which the class will receive when the names reach them.

The French digraph we studied this week is "en/an". In writing, we continued to work on editing. The class helped one student edit their story, by checking punctuation, capital letters and spelling.

We began looking at 3-dimensional shapes in math. We reviewed the names of the shapes. Each table was charged with thinking of things in the world that have a particular shape and drawing those examples. One table came up with things that are cubes, another with things that are cones, etc.

Each table presented their ideas to the class, and we came up with more examples. The students completed some worksheets about 3D shapes, and also had another period of hands-on geometry centers.

We wrapped up our unit on Daily and Seasonal Changes with one more fun song about the seasons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKpQVLU81DA) and by watching and discussing a short video on the topic (https://www.idello.org/fr/ressource/1161-Les-Cycles-De-La-Nature-Les-Saisons?navcontext=14476) (this site, Idello, requires a subscription to enter).